Sunday, January 1, 2012

We had such a wonderful time ice skating. I was SHOCKED that Kate and Elle wanted to skate. I thought they wouldn't want to. Or they would be scared once they tried and want to stop. Nope, they LOVED it!!

Parker definitely wins the award for falling the most

Those are the smallest ice skates ever! So cute!

Ok, these pictures are out of order. We stopped by the NBC store on the first day after Rockefeller Plaza for a much needed candy break. ﻿

In an attempt to not be super sad to be so far from family at Christmas time we went to New York City the day after Christmas for two nights.

The drive was about 4 hours. We lucked out and didn't hit any traffic on the way.

Ok, so you can't really see what the sign says. My bad. It says "Connecticut welcomes you"

As soon as we got there we headed out to check thing out. Our first stop was Rockefeller plaza.

Next we were off to Time Square. Parker wanted to get his picture taken with Mario. It was really funny because there were tons of people dressed up in costumes so you can get your picture taken with them for $$$$.

This guy in the background dressed up like the Statue of Liberty

Time Square!!!

Next we took a tour on our way to the harbor to go see the Statue of Liberty

The kids LOVED being on the top level of the bus.

The Bull

The subway

F.A.O Schwarz

Too bad that bird cost $100.

The kids playing the $25,000 Barbie Foosball game

The big piano

F.A.O Schwaz Soldier

On our LONG walk to F.A.O Schwarz it started to down pour. We didn't have our umbrellas with us so we ended up buying three umbrellas from street vendors. Elle fell asleep on our way to find somewhere to eat dinner after F.A.O Schwarz.

It was seriously raining like crazy. But it was great too. I know that sounds weird, but it was so terrible that we had to just laugh. We huddled together heads down and walked as quickly as we could back to the hotel. Seconds after the above picture was taken it stared to rain even harder and the wind picked up like crazy. Our $5 street vendor umbrellas bent back the wrong way. Luckily by that time we were right across the street from our hotel. We were soaking wet! It made a memory!!!

The next morning we woke up early and headed down to the Today Show. Not early enough though. There were a lot of people there. I was able to talk the officer guarding the side entrance to let us through. Matt Lauer ﻿waved to Elle and said hi to her. The kids thought it was so boring to be there, so we left after just a couple of minutes.

On Christmas Eve we continued our tradition and we went to the movies and out to dinner. We had to start this tradition when we moved away from family. It keeps us busy on Christmas Eve so we aren't thinking of all of the fun our family is having without us.

When we got home we surprised the kids with a special present. When they opened it, this is what they found.

When we decided to move from Indiana we knew the kids would not be happy about it at all. So we made a family motto.Cheesy as it is... Adventures, big or small, we like them all. It turned out to work too. The kids were (somewhat) willing to move to Mass. for our next adventure.

So I thought it would be a great way to let the kids know that we are going to NEW YORK!!!! The kids were so excited!